Prevention of nonadherence to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications for newly diagnosed patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Adherence to medications for chronic pediatric diseases decreases overtime. This randomized controlled trial evaluated a clinic-based, nurse-administered educational and behavioral intervention to prevent the anticipated drop in adherence to nonsteroidal medications among newly diagnosed patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Thirty-four participants completed the study (mean age = 8.44 years, SD = 3.96), including 19 in the experimental group and 15 in the standard-treatment (education) control group. There were significant group and Group x Time effects for adherence (assessed with an electronic monitor over a 13-month period) favoring the experimental group. In contrast, the groups did not differ significantly in disease activity or functional limitations. Factors that may have prevented detection of differences in these health parameters are dicussed.     

Does spreading activation summate?

Summary Network models of semantic memory assume implicitly or explicitly that the degree of activation of a node is a monotonic function of the total amount of excitation reaching that node from all sources. For example, the activation level of the node representing apple should be greater if it is receiving excitation due to the activation of the nodes for fruit and pear than if only one of these neighboring nodes is activated. This notion was tested by presenting semantic primes 80 ms or 320 ms before a letter string (e.g., apple or ipple) requiring a lexical decision. The prime stimuli consisted of a pair of simultaneous items that were identical in the single prime condition (e.g., fruit/fruit or pear/pear) or different in the double prime condition (e.g., fruit/pear or pear/fruit), and were either related (target = apple) or unrelated (target = copper) to the target, or neutral. As predicted by the summation of semantic activation assumption of network models there was a larger priming effect (in the 320 ms SOA condition) following the simultaneous activation of two related nodes than following the activation of only one node.This research was supported by grants to the first author from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.     

Parent and actometer measures of motor activity level in the young infant

Motor activity level is one dimension of infant temperament for which parental judgment can be validated against a truly independent criterion. Two studies were conducted, the first involving a 27-min sample of behavior in a structured, attention-getting situation, and the second involving a 24-hr sample of in-home behavior. In both studies, parent perception of the 3- or 4-month-old as measured by the Activity Level (AL) scale of the Rothbart Infant Behavior Questionnaire was compared to the composited readings from four mechanical motion recorders (actometers) worn, one per limb, by the infant. The AL scale did not correlate with the actometer measure, r=.05 and R=.00, and the expected convergence of the 3-month version of the IBQ activity scale with its mechanical counterpart was not found. In the 24-hr study, birth order and ponderal index were significantly correlated with 24-hr actometer scores; first-borns and thin infants were most active.     

Variables differentiating affective interaction in a family therapy and a control group: Father-child welfare and mother-child emergency affect

In this study of 37 pre-therapy and 23 matched control families who never sought family therapy, father-child welfare affect and mother-child emergency affect were significantly higher in the control families. Control families were found generally to express more Welfare and Emergency emotion. Affective expression between parents did not significantly differentiate the groups.This study has been supported by Grant No. MA-4510 of the Medical Research Council of Canada and was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, September 1983. The authors wish to express their thanks to Toby Schwartz, Harriet Gold-Kaats, and Terry Tannenbaum-Dascal, who acted as coders and research assistants; Joseph Beltempo, BSc, who helped in the statistical analysis; and James Robbins, PhD, who gave much valuable advice.     

Mediating interpersonal expectancies via vocal cues: Differential speech intensity as a means of social influence

Differential vocal emphasis in the tape-recorded instruction reading for a standard person perception task was manipulated by mechanically raising or lowering the volume of the key words describing the success or failure response alternatives on the rating scale. In a series of three experiments, Ss exposed to success emphasis in the instructions rated the stimulus persons as more successful than did Ss exposed to failure emphasis. This trend was reversed for Ss who listened twice to the instructions. None of the Ss reported awareness of the influence attempt.     

The time it takes to imagine1

Stanley and Furedy (1966), using the paired-comparisons technique, reported that under conditions where size constancy held, Emmert’s law failed as distance increased beyond 90 in. Experiment 1, designed to check this report with a shorter-duration induction flash, did not yield 90 in. as the point of failure. However, although complete size constancy for direct images was again obtained, the results did not unambiguously suggest strict proportionality between afterimage size and distance. To allow a less ambiguous assessment of proportionality, Experiment 2 used magnitude-estimation procedures. Distance estimates were completely veridical, but afterimage size varied only linearly, and not proportionally, with apparent distance. It was concluded the Boring (1940) was mistaken in his attempt to reduce size constancy and Emmert’s law to the same principle.     

CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL AND DROPOUT MDTA TRAINEES1

A study was designed to compare several variables of Manpower Development Training Act (MDTA) clients who dropped out of the program with those of clients who completed the program. A random sample of application cards was drawn for individuals enrolled in MDTA adult classes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trainees who completed the program were more likely to be married, older, characterized by a more stable employment history prior to entering the program, and slightly more educated than were program dropouts. Clients who completed the program versus those who did not were not significantly different on the following variables: (1) sex; (2) counseling versus no counseling; (3) race; and (4) client reported physical disability.     

The early development of empathy: Self-regulation and individual differences in the first year

A longitudinal study of 45 mothers and their first-born infants was conducted to identify developmentally meaningful, individual differences in children's primitive empathic responding at 12 months of age, and to determine whether differences in self-regulatory skills assessed at 4 months might underlie any differences in empathic responding observed. Personal distress responses analogous to those observed in older children and adults were identified in one-third of the sample at 12 months of age. These distress responses were associated with indices of poorer self-regulatory skills in social contexts at 4 months of age. The results are interpreted within the broader framework of the development of self-regulatory strategies in the early childhood years.This research was supported by grants from the Australian Research Council, the National Research Fellowship Scheme, and the Macquarie University Research Grant Scheme. We thank Judy Chan, Alison Malbourne, Sylvana Sturevska, and Lorraine Smith for their assistance in data collection and analysis.